GeForce GTX 780 Ti Game Benchmarks in Stereo 3D and 120Hz 2D Mode

Just a few days ago Nvidia has updated their highest-end single GPU with the new GeForce GTX 780 Ti replacing the previous top model in the form of GTX TITAN. The new graphic cards based around the GTX 780 Ti are out in the wild already, but the question that needs to be answered is if a single GTX 780 Ti graphics card is enough for comfortable gaming with maximum detail levels in the latest games in stereoscopic 3D mode with 3D Vision as well as what you cane expect if you play on a 120Hz+ 2D monitor instead of in stereoscopic 3D mode. That is exactly what I tried to do here, by picking up some of the latest bigger game titles that were released in the past 4 months and testing them in stereoscopic 3D mode as well as in 2D mode. I’ve ended up with 12 game titles which should be more than enough to give you a good idea about the performance you can expect and before starting with the tests let us look at the official Nvidia 3D Vision ratings of these games.

As you can see from the 12 games only one is rated by Nvidia as 3D Vision Ready – Batman Arkham Origins, and Shadow Warrior has an Excellent rating as the game does support stereoscopic 3D mode natively and it works great with 3D Vision. On the other hand there are four top games that are sequels to popular franchises and all of them have a Not Recommended rating, these are: ARMA 3, Battlefield 4, Saints Row IV and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Blacklist. The rest are rated Fair/Good and only WRC 4 FIA World Rally Championship does not have a profile, but the interesting thing is that the the latest WRC game does work quite well even without a profile and is playable even with some rendering issues in stereo 3D present.

So what is the goal of these tests? Essentially to see if the GeForce GTX 780 Ti can provide 100fps or more in 2D mode as well as 60 fps per eye in stereo 3D mode at 1080p resolution with maximum details and some AA. As you can see the AA of choice was 4xMSAA where available as at 1920×1080 resolution it is more than enough to smooth the edges while not bringing way too much of a performance hit. After all the idea is to stress the GTX 780 Ti a lot in order to see what you can expect and you should have pretty high expectations for a high-end video card like this one.

As you can see the worst results in terms of framerate we are getting are in ARMA 3 and Total War ROME II. The case with ARMA 3 is that the game itself is really demanding, especially if you want to push the details to the maximum and have really long viewing distance in the game. The case with Total War ROME II is similar – the game can also be pushed to unreasonably high graphics details, but it also has a really stressful benchmark mode that probably represents a worse case scenario you can get when playing the game with a serious battle going on. Another important thing to mention is the result in 2D mode in the game Saints Row IV, as you can see getting 64 fps seems a bit too low, but that is due to some sort of frame capping inside the game (even though vsync is disabled), the actual achievable framerate is about 100 fps with these graphical settings. All other games do manage to provide great performance on the GTX 780 Ti, regardless if you want to play in stereo 3D mode or in 2D mode with higher refresh rate. If you want to play in 2D mode at 144Hz refresh rate on a gaming monitor supporting this you might want to consider going for a SLI with GTX 780 Ti and the same suggestion applies for larger resolution displays.

In the end, looking at the results, the GeForce GTX 780 Ti can perform really well when playing some of the top latest games with maximum graphic details and extra AA filtering both in 2D mode with a 120Hz+ LCD monitor and in stereoscopic 3D mode using 3D Vision. The card is great, but what we actually need are more games with official support for 3D Vision, because as you can see from the list of games tested here only 2 were ready to be played in stereoscopic 3D mode with 3D Vision out of the box. And thanks to the Helix Mod and the active stereoscopic 3D gaming community there are fixes for additional three, and some of the other games can turn out to look great when played with 3D Vision with patches. For example Battlefield 4 and considering the fact that the previous Battlefield 3 had a patch to add stereoscopic 3D support it is a bit of a disappointment that the sequel does not support it.

If you are still using an older series of graphics cards from Nvidia like me with two GTX 580 in SLI or even a single GTX 580 or GTX 680 you might as well consider going for an upgrade to a GTX 780 Ti in order to get the best performance with a single GPU, the same applies for slower or older cards as well. If you already have a GTX 780 or a GTX TITAN, then there is not that much need to upgrade to the new GeForce GTX 780 Ti, but you might consider adding a second card of the same type. I’m definitely upgrading my water cooled GTX 580 SLI setup to a single GTX 780 Ti and I do plan on adding a full cover water block to the card to make it cooler and quieter compared to the standard air cooler. Unfortunately going for water cooling would only help in reducing the operating temperatures, but not that much for overclocking as the most limiting factor on the GTX 780 is the power limiter maximum you can set and not the temperature. The good thing is that the GeForce GTX 780 does perform great even without additional overclocking thanks to the GPU Boost that tries to maintain the maximum clock frequency for the GPU Boost, the only thing that I’m not that happy with is the default high temperature target of 83 degrees Celsius, but as I’ve already mentioned with a water cooling setup the high operating temperature “problem” is easily resolvable.

With SLI there are more things that affect the performance, things like if there is a profile for the game, if the SLI is effective, what settings you are running the game at etc. Though Dual-card SLI setups are a good option for upgrade, start with one card and later on add a second for extra performance. Also with two mid-range cards in SLI you can often beat the performance of the higher end single GPUs and often at a better price.

The Dual-GPU cards like the GTX 690 also have their advantages, but I’m not too big of a fan of them, because having to put two GPUs on a single PCB you often have to make compromises with the clocks in order to fit into a certain TDP limit, furthermore this also hurts overclockability and is problematic for cooling, so I’d prefer to go for two GTX 680s for example instead of a single GTX 690. In fact I would probably do that with GTX 780 Ti, adding a second card, but at a later time when my budget allows it.

As for GTX 690 vs GTX 780 Ti, the 780 pretty much matches the specs in the form of a single GPU and even improves in some areas, so it should perform better.

I think it would really interesting to compare your GTX 580 SLI to these 780 ti results, using the same machine. I know that’s quite a lot of work, but it would really interesting- especially because I’m still running 580 SLI as well. :->

Is it possible to contact nVidia directly and tell them that they need to pull themselves together and make sure more manufacturers add 3D vision compatible monitors and projectors? Samsung has dropped all of their 3D monitors. Eizo has a great VA panel but not 3D Vision compatible… It’s like they are handing their ass to AMD since AMD got EA & DICE eating out of their hands.

Unfortunately Nvidia hasn’t been active around 3D Vision for a while already, but the good news is that with the new displays supporting G-Sync we are also going to see new models supporting 3D Vision. That however will happen next year…

I think next upgrade I will go with a dual gpu just because I go air cooling/don’t overclock. It seems to be a great card if you don’t plan to go sli or stay single card for a long time. I can’t really keep affording to buy two high end cards at once anymore so it seems smart for me to wait for the next “big” dual-gpu card and stay with it as long as I can without sli.

Hmmm, been thinking of upgrading my old 2X680GTX cards that I have in SLI on my new Haswell PC. I don’t want to upgrade until I can get 50% or more performance over what I currently have. If one of these equals a 690 then maybe getting a pair of 780ti will get me the performance I seek.

Arioch, the GTX 780 Ti is roughly 50% faster than a single GTX 680, but dual 680s in SLI or a single GTX 690 will probably be a bit faster than the 780. With two GTX 780 Ti cards in SLI you will probably get around 50% faster than two GTX 680s in SLI in games where SLI scales well.

There’s one thing that keeps me from buying a dual gpu card: If the other gpu breaks down you have to send the card somewhere to get it fixed. If you have two separate cards and the other one breaks down you still have the other ^^

Dual GPU cards such as the GTX 690 use internal SLI technology via a hardware PLX bridge chip, so there is a bit of a difference compared to SLI setups with multiple single GPU cards, but it is still SLI technology.